{"id":395408,"date":"2025-09-03T20:15:18","date_gmt":"2025-09-03T20:15:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/395408\/"},"modified":"2025-09-03T20:15:18","modified_gmt":"2025-09-03T20:15:18","slug":"game-reduced-in-quality-ex-england-captains-call-for-big-test-cricket-reforms-cricket-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/395408\/","title":{"rendered":"&#8216;Game reduced in quality&#8217;: Ex-England captains call for big Test cricket reforms | Cricket News"},"content":{"rendered":"<p> <img src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/rishabh-pant.jpg\" alt=\"'Game reduced in quality': Ex-England captains call for big Test cricket reforms\" title=\"Rishabh Pant\" decoding=\"async\" fetchpriority=\"high\"\/> NEW DELHI: Former England captains <a href=\"https:\/\/timesofindia.indiatimes.com\/topic\/alastair-cook\" styleobj=\"[object Object]\" class=\"\" commonstate=\"[object Object]\" frmappuse=\"1\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Alastair Cook<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/timesofindia.indiatimes.com\/topic\/michael-vaughan\" styleobj=\"[object Object]\" class=\"\" commonstate=\"[object Object]\" frmappuse=\"1\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Michael Vaughan<\/a> have urged the International Cricket Council (ICC) to introduce bold reforms to Test cricket, arguing that current rules are restricting both tactics and player welfare.Cook, England&#8217;s all-time leading run-scorer in Tests, suggested a radical shift in the new-ball rule. Currently, teams can only take a new ball after 80 overs, but Cook believes greater flexibility would add intrigue to the game.<\/p>\n<p>Rishabh Pant suffers right foot injury in India vs England Test; taken off in an ambulance<\/p>\n<p>Go Beyond The Boundary with our YouTube channel. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/@toisports\" rel=\"noopener nofollow noreferrer\" styleobj=\"[object Object]\" class=\"\" target=\"\" commonstate=\"[object Object]\" frmappuse=\"1\">SUBSCRIBE NOW!<\/a>\u201cA new rule I would add would be, how about, in 160 overs, you can take the new ball whenever you want? You have got two new balls for those 160 overs, and you can take that second ball whenever you want. You could take one after 30 overs if you wanted to,\u201d Cook proposed on the Stick to Cricket podcast.<\/p>\n<p>Poll<\/p>\n<p>Do you agree with Michael Vaughan&#8217;s suggestion for more substitutions in Test cricket?<\/p>\n<p>Michael Vaughan, who captained England to Ashes glory in 2005, focused on substitutions, calling cricket \u201cbehind the times\u201d compared to other sports. Vaughan argued that the current restriction allowing substitutes only for concussion cases lowers the overall quality of matches.\u201cIn the first innings of a game, let&#8217;s say <a href=\"https:\/\/timesofindia.indiatimes.com\/topic\/rishabh-pant\" styleobj=\"[object Object]\" class=\"\" commonstate=\"[object Object]\" frmappuse=\"1\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Rishabh Pant<\/a> takes a knock to his hand. He can still bat but can&#8217;t keep wickets. Under current rules, India can&#8217;t bring on another keeper like Dhruv Jurel unless it&#8217;s a concussion case,\u201d Vaughan said.\u201cWe have concussion subs. So why don&#8217;t we have substitutes? All of the other sports have it \u2013 why are we allowing the game to be reduced in quality if someone gets a clip,\u201d he added.Both former skippers believe that innovation is needed to keep Test cricket competitive and engaging amid challenges from shorter formats.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"NEW DELHI: Former England captains Alastair Cook and Michael Vaughan have urged the International Cricket Council (ICC) to&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":395409,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4101],"tags":[136668,1406,136670,8422,79354,136671,22958,79,136669,136667,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-395408","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-cricket","8":"tag-alastair-cook","9":"tag-cricket","10":"tag-cricket-substitutions-rules","11":"tag-international-cricket-council","12":"tag-michael-vaughan","13":"tag-new-ball-rules-in-cricket","14":"tag-rishabh-pant","15":"tag-sports","16":"tag-test-cricket-innovations","17":"tag-test-cricket-reforms","18":"tag-uk","19":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115142205952438757","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/395408","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=395408"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/395408\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/395409"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=395408"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=395408"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=395408"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}